Is it a sin to kill a mockingbird?

It's the 50th anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird and everyone seems out for blood. In the Wall Street Journal, Allen Barra compares Harper Lee to other Southern writers, and finds her wanting: "And as for Harper Lee—Alabama born, raised and still resident—she doesn't really measure up to the others in literary talent, but we like to pretend she does." Only a few weeks earlier, Malcolm Gladwell complained that the book reveals the limits of Southern liberalism: "A book that we thought...